Toward a Criminal Law for Cyberspace: Distributed Security
Posted: 13 Jul 2004
Abstract
Cybercrime creates unique challenges for the reactive model of crime control that has been predominant for approximately the last century and a half. That model makes certain assumptions about crime, which derive from characteristics of real-world crime. These assumptions do not hold for cybercrime, so the reactive model is not an appropriate means of dealing with online crime. The article explains how modified principles of criminal law can be utilized to implement a new, non-reactive model which can deal effectively with cybercrime. This model of distributed security emphasizes prevention, rather than reaction, which is achieved by holding citizens liable for their failure to prevent cybercrime.
Keywords: Criminal law, cybercrime, law enforcement, complicity, assumption of risk
JEL Classification: K10, K14, K42
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation